Our annual LOaVEs for the Holidays fundraiser is back for the third year! Read on to hear some updates and for more details of where you can get yourself some goodies right form our kitchen to yours.

We are back with an exciting announcement! Every year since high school, Leung and I have been baking elves in our high school home-ec rooms baking up banana bread storms from 3PM-9PM… and having loads of fun doing it! We would sell to parents during music concerts, and various other events happening throughout the school year. I remember every year, our goal would be to hand Barb a cheque of $1,000 CAD on it to put toward the orphanage. Since then, we have moved onto continuing this project through our blog!

If you have been following us for a while, you would know about the charity we are fundraising for, but if you’re new this season, we are so glad you’re tuning in with us!

This is a picture of Barb and Edwin, in the very beginnings when they’d first met at the airport.

Jaaja Barb’s Home of Angels is an orphanage in Jinja, Uganda. It all started with Barb’s first trip to Uganda, and coming back feeling God’s call to help the kids she was seeing living in the garbage dumps, having had no food to eat in over a week. Her banana bread has always been well-loved by friends and neighbours, so she decided to do the thing she knew best– baking loaves of banana bread and selling to family and friends.

This was 10 years ago. 10 years ago when Edwin had asked Barb to help him build a small and very humble home for children. 10 years ago that they’ve started building a dream that has led to something far bigger than they had ever imagined.

So many miracles and blessings have filled the spaces of the Home of Angels within these 10 years. The first few kids who have been in the Home are now grown up and advancing to the age of 18. At 18, they are no longer legally allowed to stay at the Home, and our goal is to get them prepared for life on their own outside the walls of the compound. This means teaching them all they need to sustain themselves through getting their own paying jobs out in the village so they can live a long, healthy life.

Last year, we raised money specifically for the new nursery school within the compound. This year is especially exciting because I’ve just booked a flight earlier this afternoon leaving in January… which means the funds will be heading to straight to Uganda in less than 2 months! Specifically, the money raised will be going toward supplies to teach kids reading/writing/baking over their summer holiday (they get the whole month of January off from school!), as well as this exciting agriculture project that has been in the works for the past few months!

So what will we be doing when we are in Uganda? Well! There are just tons to do, and I can barely sleep because of this overwhelming excitement to meet all the kids! I’ve already collected a ton of scattered notes of all that I have to think about, do, and bring before the departure. To keep it short and simple though, we will be mostly teaching the kids how to read and write, and to equip the older kids with the knowledge and helping them figure out what they want to do once they reach 18 years old! They already have some ideas (that are super brilliant and they are so excited!), and it involves baking… (;

This picture below is Precious, and she is so proud of her cupcakes!

The other super exciting thing is the implementation of this project that I’ve been working with my prof on in my capstone agroecology course. To finish off my Applied Biology degree actually being able to apply all my 5 years of undergrad knowledge to this is so flipping awesome! Time to put the “applied” in my “applied biology b.sc”! I won’t bore you all with the details of alien agriculture terms, but it’s looking like tons of maize and groundnuts will be in the foreseeable future at the orphanage. My proposed solutions are still being refined this week with a couple meetings with a few faculty members, and I can’t wait to update you all in late January! I’m getting side-tracked, but what I’m getting at is that a portion of the funds will be going toward the equipment or any infrastructure required for the implementation of the sustainable agriculture system. The goal is to create a system with the resilience to withstand changing climatic conditions.

Below is a photo of kids planting the maize crops onto the land that were donated to them a year ago, but the crops are unable to grow because of the increasing torrential downpours due to climate change. The impacts of climate change across the world… I would love to delve into this topic, but that could be another blogpost (or two) on its own.

I could watch the videos Barb sends me for hours. Watching these videos just leave my eyes welling up in tears… but the happy kind of tears. I can see the huge smiles on their faces, their gratitude for the little things that they never take for granted, the sparkle in their eyes… I simply can’t wait to pour in the infinite amount of love that God pours into each and every one of us every day into the hearts of these kids. And to see all the miracles He has done for the Home and his children, how powerful is that?

Below is a picture of Edwin (on the top left) and just some of the kids. How beautiful are their smiles? I just can’t get over this photo. Their love for Edwin shines right through with how much he does for them daily. He keeps all of them well behaved, but also loves them so well.

I could ramble on and on about the Home of Angels, but Barb does have a blog dedicated to the Home, and if you’d love to get updates and to find out more, please go on her blog to read more and subscribe to her email list!

So what’s different in this years fundraiser?

Well, may we introduce… our Rosemary Chocolate Loaf in a JAR! Tons of people have been asking us for the recipe, but although we believe recipes should always be shared, this one might just be kept in our own kitchens for a longer little while before its release (;

This holiday season, you can get a jar of dry mix to gift your family and friends, and not have to worry about the following:

“shoot! do I need to keep the loaf in the freezer?”

“how long does a loaf keep?”

“does the loaf freeze well?”

Or you can impress your family and friends by whipping up the loaf in your own kitchen, and bringing the freshly baked loaf (yes, crispy crust and all!) to your party guests!

And for those folk who’d prefer ready-to-eat loaves, we will still have them baked, ready and wrapped for you all!

This year, we will be at two markets in the Tri-Cities, with details below:

To make this easy as 1-2-3, here are a few ways you can support this project!

1.) Find us at any of the markets listed above! We will be there sharing Barb’s story and selling our loaves and dry mixes!

2.) Can’t make it to the markets? Order your loaves for pick-up at various locations in and around metro-Vancouver/Tri-Cities by filling a google form here.

3.) Not in Vancouver to grab a loaf but still would love to donate? Your generosity is greatly appreciated! Please E-transfer to our email at radiantrachels[at]gmail.com

4.) Spread the word!

Thank you for reading this far! If you have any questions about any part of the project, or questions regarding the Home of Angels, please send us an email and we will get back to you as soon as we can!

All our LOaVEs & hugs,

Rachel Chew & Rachel Leung